Another newbie.... (sorry)

I've been looking around these forums for a couple of days now trying to find information and learn some new things and this forum has been quite helpful. I finally decided to register and write my first post because I was having trouble finding an answer to something:

I'm quite (even embarrassingly) new to video editing. I would eventually like to build a computer solely for the purposes of editing and am currently saving money/ learning what I can about building a computer for said purposes. In the meantime, I would like to purchase a program so that I can learn and practice with some five minute films on my current computer until I'm at a level experience-wise and financially-wise to build the aforementioned computer and get into some full length indie-type films.

From what I gathered on the site so far, Adobe Premiere seems like a good choice. A friend, however, suggested After Effects which I thought was something like a supplement to Premiere but he said it can be its own stand alone program for editing. Everything I've read so far leads me to believe that After Effects does just what its name implies.

Can someone guide me to a post where something like this has been covered already? I hate to ask a question that's been asked about these programs millions of times in the past but I've had trouble searching for the info. I'm looking for.

You don't need to apologise for being a newbie. Despite what some might say we're really very nice

If you're looking at getting into editing, give Premiere Elements a try. It's a cut down version of Premiere. I've not been using it long myself, but the manual is nice and thick, and there are plenty of tutorials to guide you through.

Thanks for the help! I'm downloading the trial version of Elements now. And sorry for sounding so apologetic, as a new guy I'm just trying to be cognizant of what questions might have been asked too much or what information could just as easily been searched for.

Heh... I'm the big hairy scary person (I'm half German )(but only by nationality, that's how we do it over here)

Anyway, I'm having problems installing the trial version of Adobe Elements that I downloaded from their website. I'm gonna try another site to see if that works any better for some reason. Is this a common problem or am I just lucky?